by Ilsa J. Bick
The younger one leapt out at her right away: lantern jaw, a ski-slope of a nose, a brow wrinkled as he scanned faces…she dredged up the name: Gordon Plath. Two years ahead of her at Starfleet Medical Academy. Nice enough guy.
Plath spotted her just about the time she recognized him because his knit brows smoothed. He turned to say something to the others. The Betazoid glanced her way, dropped his eyes to a padd he carried in his left hand, then murmured something to Plath.
Okay, that was weird. A pin of disquiet pricked her chest, and her endocrine system obliged with a squirt of adrenaline. (A second later, the kid knotted. It was like having an onboard computer double-checking her systems: Was that a surge of epinephrine? Thump! Roger that.) And what was with the security detail?
Instinctively, she slowed and then stumbled as Faulwell, following close behind, plowed into her. Faulwell’s hand flashed to grab her right arm and steady her. “Whoa,” he said. “Sorry. I wasn’t…” Then he saw her face. “What is it?”
Before she could respond, Plath, the Betazoid, and the others formed a wedge, with the security personnel cleaving a path through the clot of disembarking passengers from a tourist shuttle. As the security people got closer, Lense saw the insignia on their uniforms—an old-fashioned spyglass bisecting a Starfleet arrowhead.
What the hell is SCIS doing here?
Lense had to fight an impulse to cringe back. Even the kid had stopped moving.
Out of nowhere, Scotty appeared on her left. “Something wrong?” he asked Faulwell, who still had Lense’s arm.
Before Faulwell could answer, Plath was there. “Dr. Lense.” His tone was serious, and his blue-gray eyes grave. “I’m Captain Plath, Deputy Commander, Starfleet Medical, and this is Counselor Duren.”
“I remember you, Captain,” Lense said, automatically taking the hand he proffered. Plath’s grip was strong but brief. Duren didn’t offer his hand. Lense flicked a glance to the security personnel hovering several meters behind Plath and then to the last two, the older man and woman. Now that she saw them close up, she was sure she knew the woman…. She looked up at Plath. “What’s going on?”
“We’d like to discuss this somewhere else, if you don’t mind,” Plath said.
“Discuss what?” A pointed glance at the man and woman. “Do I know you?”
The woman’s eyes were moss-brown and serious. “It’s been a long time, Lizzie. More than, what, twenty years?”
Lizzie…No one called her that except family, but this woman wasn’t…The name came to her then. “You’re Dr. Darly. You work with my mo—with Jennifer.”
“On the Tholian Drura Sextus Dig, yes—and it’s Livilla, please,” Darly said in a throaty alto. Her eyes skipped to Lense’s stomach and then back. “Let’s see, the last time I saw you, you had just turned, what, fifteen? Sixteen? Do you remember?…No? Well, I expect you had other things on your mind. I’ll bet you don’t remember Dr. Strong either, do you?” She gestured toward the older man who, Lense saw now, was very good-looking, with muscular shoulders and a torso that tapered to narrow hips.
“Preston.” His grip was forceful, his hands thick and work-roughened. He exuded an aura of unabashed sexuality, an insinuating and seductive charm.
“I…I’m sorry.” Lense was blushing, she knew; she could feel the heat crawling up her neck. And she was totally bewildered now. “I don’t understand. Where is Jennifer?”
Plath gave a tight smile. “We wanted to be sure to meet you first. We just…” He glanced at the Betazoid.
Duren took up the slack. “We should go somewhere private, Doctor.”
“To talk about what?” Then, a sudden premonition. “Oh my God, nothing’s happened to Ju—Dr. Bashir? On DS9?”
“DS9?” Confusion clouded Plath’s features for an instant. “No, nothing like that. We just thought it best…”
“Thought best about what?” She shot a pointed glance at the security personnel. “Am I in trouble for something?” She felt Faulwell and Scotty move in to flank her, and she was—oddly—grateful.
“No, no, hold on.” Visibly flustered, Plath held up both hands, palms out. “Hold on, it’s not what you think.”
Scotty puffed out his chest. “Then what are a couple of special agents—”
“I’m not a special agent—”
“All the more reason why we should be asking what anyone from Starfleet Criminal Investigative Service would be wanting with one of ours.”
“I…” Plath’s gaze bounced from Scotty to the counselor, who only shrugged. Sighing, Plath dropped his hands. “I’m sorry, Dr. Lense. I’d hoped we could discuss this somewhere private.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Plath,” Lense said. “Just say it.”
But it was Darly who answered.
“Oh, Lizzie, dear,” she said, gently. “Your mother is dead.”
CHAPTER 2
“It’s not that I’m unsympathetic, Brett.” Jo Stern knit her fingers together and tried for a placating smile. “It’s simply a question of expertise and jurisdiction.”
“Oh, your ass, my diction, Stern,” Ryan said. Par for the course: Over the five years of their acquaintance, Brett Ryan of the United Earth Police never had liked the idea of Starfleet playing in the same sandbox. If he weren’t such a natural investigator, Stern would’ve tried to get him booted long ago. But Ryan was like a Sartusian pit bull, and the simple truth was Jo Stern liked him. He was smart, tough, and not afraid of getting in anyone’s face. Even on a comscreen, Ryan was imposing: a rugged, broad-shouldered man with a scruff of hair that was equal parts brown and gray; a thin seam of scar bisecting his left eyebrow before jagging down his cheek. “This stinks of Starfleet cover-up.”
Stern opened her mouth to reply, but then a voice to her left cut in with a thick, Georgia-homeboy sotto voce, “He’s got that right.”
Oh, shut up, Mac. Stern merely threw Admiral Leonard McCoy an irritable glare, and the old man put on a “who me?” expression, then rolled his eyes.
Ryan continued, “I don’t care if Almieri was on a Starfleet grant. She wasn’t active duty, and that means you don’t have jurisdiction. She—a civilian, I remind you—died in what I will also remind you is a crowded city. Who the hell knows what she was carrying? If you don’t think I know a cover-up—”
“Put a sock in it, Brett.” The simple fact that everything he said was true was beside the point. In fact, why her superiors were demanding that she get the UEP to release the body to Starfleet at all begged the question. Of course, Almieri would’ve been autopsied. The law was clear: Any unexpected, unattended, unexplained death demanded an autopsy. But Almieri was a civilian. Her autopsy would normally fall under the jurisdiction of civilian law enforcement, as would any investigation. In this case, however—and for no good reason that Stern could think of—the word from on high was clear: Starfleet was to take custody of the body by whatever means necessary. Since brown stuff rolled downhill, the job landed in Stern’s lap.
Stern smelled a definite rat—and she was curious. The fact that she didn’t know much about the dig either nagged at her like a toothache.
“Jennifer Almieri was a consultant. She was in charge of an archaeological dig on a restricted planet that…no, Brett, zip it; you know I can’t discuss it.”
“Fine.” Sighing, Ryan scrubbed his face with his hands. “So we’ll get a copy of your report…dot-dot-dot?”
“Just as soon as we’re done,” Stern said, moving to disconnect. “Now if you’ll instruct your people to beam the body to our morgue, I can give them the coord—”
“I know the damned coordinates,” Ryan said. He hesitated an instant. “Look, Jo…I, uh, I talked to my lieutenant and…You’re secure on your end, right?”
Now she was mystified. She heard a squeal of leather as McCoy pushed out of his habitual slump. “Always are. What’s going on, Brett?”
“Well,” Ryan said, and hunched closer to his screen, “it’s about Sharihana…”
When t
hey’d disconnected a short time later, Stern looked over at McCoy. “Well?”
McCoy puckered his lips, pruning his already exceedingly wrinkled features. And he needed a trim; wispy snow-white bangs grazed his eyebrows and gave him a look closer to a wizened bouvier. “Give me a fast ship, and I’ll put her in harm’s way.”
“I know you didn’t think of that one.”
“No, John Paul Jones. I just thought it was apt. Either that one, or damn the torpedoes. Thing is, you either come out looking pretty good, or pretty bad. Speaking as a superior officer, that is.”
“Thanks for the insight.” Sighing, Stern pinched the bridge of her nose. “You know, this cloak and dagger, internecine crap between agencies is for the birds. It was easier when people were shooting at us.”
“Yes, it was. But you’ve done well here, Jo, better than almost anyone I’ve seen come through. If Ryan thinks there’s a problem with Dr. Sharihana…”
“Oh, come on, Mac. A Dominion spy? A covert operative? For whom? And why can’t the UEP get someone else, someone like…” She stirred the air with her hands.
“Who?”
“For pity’s sake, I don’t know who…anyone.”
“I think he told you: He wants this on the sly, and there’s no better way to do that than to put one of our people right alongside. Assign a special agent.”
“Oh, right. I’m supposed to suggest this gracefully, like I got qualified forensic pathologists coming out of…” Her comm picked that moment to shrill. Stern stabbed it. “What?” Listened. Thought: Oh, boy; I need this like a case of fleas.
“You want company?” McCoy asked when she’d clicked off. “The added weight can’t hurt.”
Stern shook her head. “Better me. With you…too many pips.”
“Well, now, I don’t think you’ve ever been on the receiving side of you.”
“Thanks a lot. Patients used to compliment me on my bedside manner.”
“Yeah, it’s just too bad that nowadays none of them do much talking.”
“That’s pretty bad, Mac.” She bit her cheek to keep from laughing. “About as good as the one with a lot of patients just dying to see me.”
“You said it, I didn’t. Picking up some bad habits.”
“Because I’ve been hanging around you way too long. I knew it was a mistake to come back.”
“That’s true. Anyway, look on it this way, Jo: Never rains but it pours.”
“I know you didn’t think that one up.” Scraping back her chair, she stood, and tugged on her tunic. “I wasn’t born yesterday, you know.”
With an effort, McCoy hoisted himself to a stand, tottered a bit, and then steadied. “Oh, me neither, darlin’. Me neither.”
CHAPTER 3
There were only three of them in the conference room down the hall from Admiral Stern’s office: Stern, the Betazoid counselor who’d introduced himself as Han Duren, and Lense. Still, the room felt crowded. Lense decided that was because of Stern.
Stern wasn’t a bully. She was…energetic. Commanding. And for a woman who’d served as chief medical officer on the Enterprise-C back in the day, Admiral Josephine Stern looked pretty good for a woman pushing ninety. Medium height, a shock of steel-gray hair scraped back from her angular features in a short no-nonsense ponytail, a pair of quick and astonishingly bright blue eyes that gave Lense the feeling of being completely and thoroughly scanned.
“Look,” Lense said, a tremor in her voice. Not of grief: She hadn’t wept a tear for Jennifer. Why should she? She barely knew the woman. “There is no regulation against my being present for an autopsy.”
“I’m sorry, Dr. Lense.” Stern’s eyes drilled Lense. “It’s damned irregular, and I’m not going to allow it.”
“And why the hell not?” The kid gave a little flutter, and Lense put a hand over her abdomen. “If you’re worried about the effect…”
“I wouldn’t insult you like that,” Stern said. “Pregnancy’s not a disease. I’m thinking of you more as a…” She considered, then said, finally, “Family member. I don’t have children, but if I did, I’m not sure I’d want them watching my corpse being examined. You’re going to be a mom. You’d want that?”
“I…I…that’s neither here nor there.”
“Excuse me, but it is.”
Lense’s jaw was so tense her temples ached. And she didn’t like the way that…counselor was staring as if she were some fascinating new species of beetle. Trying to read her thoughts? She glared at the man and put oomph behind her next thought: Well, take this, buster; butt out!
Stern was saying something, and Lense snapped back to attention. “Sorry, would you mind repeating?”
“I asked when was the last time you’d talked to your mother?”
“Uh…” Lense floundered. “Quite a while ago. She was at her dig…ah, on Drura Sextus and…” She sighed. “I haven’t talked to her, directly, in about ten years.”
“Ah-huh. And seen her…?”
“Fifteen.”
“That’s a long time.”
“It’s…private.”
Stern broke a short silence. “Okay. I can’t stop you, but let me tell you something, all right? You haven’t seen your mother yet. I have. It’s not very pretty. Identification’s going to be hard enough on you as it is.”
“Are you saying you don’t know it’s her?”
“DNA’s definitive. Just a formality.”
“So, okay, I’m a doctor. It’s not like I haven’t seen dead people before.”
“Yes, but how many of those were your mother?” Stern asked softly.
Lense said nothing.
Duren spoke up. “Perhaps turning Jennifer into a specimen to be examined rather than a woman to be grieved is the only way Dr. Lense knows to deal with the trauma.”
“Thanks, but I’m right here.” Honestly, if there were two things she’d grown weary of, one was counselors, and the other was therapy—something even Gold saw through back on Sherman’s Planet. “How I handle my feelings is my business, Counselor, not yours.”
To her surprise, Stern showed a bit of a smile. “I think she’s got you there, Counselor. All right, Dr. Lense, you want in? You’re in. Your mother’s body was beamed in from Washington, D.C., a little while ago. I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t get started. I’ll be doing the autopsy myself.”
And it was then that the slightest alarm tingled at the back of Lense’s brain. Stern was senior; hell, she was the CMO. It would be like…well, like expecting a starship captain to peel potatoes. An autopsy was fairly routine.
Something more going on here…but what?
Duren said, “I’ll be happy to attend, Doctor.”
“Hunh?” Lense looked up, startled. “No, thanks, I’ll be fine.”
“Well, I want him there,” Stern said and when Lense opened her mouth to object, the older woman silenced her with a glare. “You may not think you need him there, but you’re not the only one in your skin, Doctor. You’ve got Junior in there, so I want Counselor Duren present. Just in case.”
“In case what? For God’s sake, I’m a doctor…”
“As you’ve already reminded me. But that wasn’t a request, Commander.” Stern let the ensuing silence spin out a bit then nodded. “Right. Let’s get to it.”
The autopsy room was in the basement and tiled in slick, teal green. The room was large—perhaps twenty by twenty meters—and accommodated three autopsy tables, all made of a shiny steel alloy.
A diener was checking the equipment, noiselessly moving between consoles. He was an attractive man with blue eyes and a honey-blond beard; probably a medical student. He caught her looking, and smiled—and was that sympathy in his eyes?
I’m fine. She gave a tight grin, looked away. Just fine.
She wasn’t, though. It was the smell that got to her: the odor of disinfectant that couldn’t quite cover up the sickly sweet reek of death and corruption.
As she donned the purple surgical uniform, she w
orked at keeping her features neutral, clinical, controlled.
Thinking: The last time I did anything like this, Idit Kahayn was dying and I didn’t have a fancy-shmancy uniform that projected a sterile field and a holographic scanner to save me from having to carve open a corpse like a roast. I had blades that cut and needles that pricked and there was a lot of blood.
Jennifer Almieri’s body lay on the middle table, hidden from view by a polarized blackout force field. Stern stepped up, motioned for Lense to take up a position opposite. “You ready for this?”
“Sure.” Lense felt Duren standing behind and a little off to her left, but she didn’t look around. The other thing she noticed: The baby hadn’t moved in a good hour.
Probably scared stiff.
A flick of Stern’s wrist, and the polarized force field cleared.
The stink slammed Lense with the forcefulness of a physical blow. And what she saw…
Don’t lose it, don’t lose it…
Rigor had come and gone. The corpse’s body was hideously distended; the skin of the torso—where it wasn’t slipping loose of its moorings along the hands, feet, and arms—was marbled in a tracery of green and black, the superficial vessels engorged with decaying, deoxygenated blood. At one point, the body must’ve lain on its right side because smears of charcoal black stained the right armpit, right breast and the pelvis to the umbilicus, a change accelerated by livor mortis, blood that had collected in dependent portions of the body, pulled there by gravity.
Jennifer’s face was black with rot. Her wide-open eyes were opaque, bulging, already liquefying. Her purple-black tongue protruded between hideously swollen, liverish lips. Her breasts were blackish-green balloons, and thick, viscous trails of blue-black purge fluid sludged from her nostrils and ears.
Her hair—a lush chestnut mane she’d wound round her head in a thick braid—lay in a puddled tangle of gore around her skull, like a cap she’d pushed back from her forehead. The skin of her scalp had sloughed free, revealing a pale glimmer of white bone.
